Surprise Dinner at Midnight

After we arrived and I freshened up as best I could (i.e. brushed my teeth, because they were GROSS), I busted my bum to get down to Customs before Vanessa started to worry about me. The queue was extraordinarily long, and I filled out my card incorrectly the first time, like a dork. (Leave it to me!)

When I finally made it up to the counter, I - of course - got the most sour-looking agent, but he did brighten up a bit when I greeted him. He looked over my card, then handed it back to me with an admonishment: "You forgot to sign your entry card." I looked at it, then back up at him, thinking I was in trouble, until he smiled at me. "You must have been too excited to get here."

With a big sigh of relief, I told him that yes, I was VERY excited to be here, and that I couldn't wait to see my friend, who was waiting for me. He stamped my passport and sent me on my way, with a new bounce in my step now that I was only a few corridors away from giving Vanessa a hug!

Arriving at Heathrow

And one huge hug later, we were off to the car park and headed here, to Aylesbury, my home away from home for this holiday. The countryside is quaint and beautiful, and I can't wait to explore it with my homegrown tour guide.

Is it worth those hours upon hours tucked into a seat in a pressurized tube, way too high in the sky to think about without getting queasy? Oh my goodness, yes. Every minute, every time.

written by  Mary Rose on July 16, 2009 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: UK 2009
tagged Food, Flight, Airport, Arrival and Customs
Send a Compliment

---

1 comment...

Our travel plan was as follows:
--Drive to Chicago
--Drop our car off at a Holiday Inn (taking advantage of the fact that if we rent a room there for one night we can leave our car there for 15 days)
--Take a shuttle to O'Hare
--Take a 4:20 PM flight Atlanta
--Four hour layover
--Take a 10:30 PM flight to London!

Flight to O'Hare was uneventful, though Carly, my little sister, and I had a fun time making up alternate captions for the picture-only safety precaution pamphlet as well as giggling at the outrageous contraptions that were being sold in the magazine, "Sky Mall."

When we got to Atlanta, things started to go wrong. The lady who assisted us with our Self-Check-In really got us off on the wrong foot. First of all, it's a self-check-in, and we were doing just fine on our own. She punched in the wrong number of bags, directed us to the wrong gate, and told us the wrong time of take-off, which resulted in a pretty frazzled sprint to the other side of the terminal. Luckily we had thirty minutes to spare before our real flight took off, and doubly luckily we switched when we did because I had inadvertently made a scene at the wrong flight line when I thought I had lost my purse and was grateful that I didn't have to spend the next eight hours with the people who were staring at me in that line.

A plane...

The TVs on the back of the chairs in front of us had free entertainment! I finally got to watch "He's Just Not That Into You" (I didn't like it as much as I thought I would, but it was good) and a few episodes of the Office and Chuck totally free! There was an in flight poker game going on where you could play against other passengers through the TV, in addition to a few other games like Galactica or Zuma.

At around 12:30 AM Central time, most passengers were sleeping. I had a very difficult time getting comfortable and as a result got a grand total of about two hours of sleep. We landed in London at 11:30 AM their time, and it's now 2:30 PM, we've checked in, showered, and are about ready to head out, but I am battling some serious jet lag. It's 8:20 AM in the States!!! I have rarely seen that side of nine this summer, I'm afraid to admit. Carly's done this flight before, and she said the best thing to do was drink a lot of water. Mom says the best thing is to go outside and let your body acclimate to the new position of the sun. My goal is just not to pass out standing up.

The first British accent I heard was a (really cute) young man directing passport check in lines. And I got my first taste of the ill will between the British and the Irish. The man there asked if I needed a Visa for study in Ireland, and I said as a student I didn't, he sniffed and said, "We control the Nothern part of Ireland, but /unfortunately/ we have no jurisdiction over the Southern part, so whether they let you in or not is completely up to them." Ha!

Still looking forward to Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens tonight, but I spotted an H+M that I want to find again.

written by  Kelsey Ingle on August 15, 2009 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: A Rover in the Clover
tagged Flight, London and Arrival
Send a Compliment

---

2 comments...

The city of Granada itself is nice and seems rather laid back. Ive learned to navigate from the house to the grocery store and internet cafe at least already. I went to the Cathedral in the center of town today for Easter Mass. Despite not understanding hardly a word from the priest I could follow along with the mass pretty well as it is the same all over the world. Two noticeable differences though that might speak to the overall idea that Granada and Nicaragua are a little more laid back than the states: the greeting one another with ¨peace be with you¨ part seemed to last about 3 times as long as usual because everyone made sure to shake everybodys hand in the surrounding quarter mile and seemed quite happy to do so. Next, instead of processing in a regimented orderly fashion to receive Communion, everybody walked in an ad hoc mad dash to the altar. All in all, it was an interesting experience.

Tomorrow the schools are still closed due to the Easter holiday but the new volunteers have our orientation. Im sure tomorrow will be just as interesting as this weekend. Hasta luego

written by  mls12 on April 4, 2010 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Volunteering with La Esperanza Granada in Granada, Nicaragua
tagged Arrival and Easter
Send a Compliment

---

2 comments...

My flight

The first flight took 40min from Linz to Vienna, from where my flight to Narita started.
At 1:15p.m was the take-off from Vienna. I made some notes during the 11 hour flight, which I will now reproduce:

Lunch was served with 9h15min to go above Minsk: Curry. A lesson I learned: If you have to choose between a new white shirt and a new orange shirt, wear the orange one if you eat curry. The white one won't stay that color, trust me.
Nap after lunch, woke up above Moscow.

Me after seven hours of flight

4,5 hours to go, above Irkutsk, it's dark outside. A snack was served: Instant ramen.
Ohropax and sleeping mask provided at least some sleep. Near-constant baby cries are hard to block off.

1,5h hours to go, slept surprisingly well, breakfast was served above Seoul.

Reached the airspace above Japan with 45min to go.

First glimpse of Japan

Stats of the aircraft I witnessed:
Speed: Between 900 and 1200+km/h
Height: Between 10000 and 12000m
40 rows, nine seats each, divided into sections of three.

I got a window seat during this flight, which has advantages and disadvantages.
+: View out of the window, this gets old after some time of just clouds however.
-: If the passengers next to you sleep, it's not easy to reach the toilett.
-: Getting your stuff from the overhead storage is hard.

We reached Narita at about 8a.m. and proceeded to check-out. Which took some time.
I got my Traveller's Cheques and my Japan Rail pass, held my first conversations in Japanese and traveled to Kyoto. More on this later.

So long and stay tuned,
JuergenS

written by  JuergenS on July 4, 2010 from Vienna, Austria
from the travel blog: Two month of Japan
tagged Flight and Arrival
Send a Compliment

---

2 comments...

Kyoto station

Ekiben - Narita

I reached Kyoto, got on a bus (flat rate 220yen) and got off at the stop specified by the owner of my first Guest House. Called him from there (Yay, my first phone call in Japan) and his wife picked me up and led me to Yurakuso.
The old couple I mentioned earlier and which is advertising on their site handed the business over to the next generation, their son and his wife (both really young) are now in charge.

The owner himself was not in but he was to pay me a visit (in order to show me around and collect the rent) later that evening. Was ushered to my room, started to unpack and took a breather. It has been 25 hours since I left my home in Austria by then.

Yurakusou

My room, front

My room, side

Kamogawa

Bought something to drink and called home for everyone to know I arrived and went to sleep.

So long and stay tuned,
JuergenS

written by  JuergenS on July 5, 2010 from Kyoto, Japan
from the travel blog: Two month of Japan
tagged Arrival and Kyoto
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...